Vacuous
by Fiercest
Summary: We've all missed you, you know." Friendship fic.


Vacuous

"_Even though we've changed and we're all finding our own place in the world, we all know that when the tears fall or the smile spreads across our face, we'll come to each other because no matter where this crazy world takes us, nothing will ever change so much to the point where we're not all still friends.__"_

~Unknown

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The lights are bright, the music a mere slur of sound in the background of event and present a mile up the road. There is atmosphere and the smell of reunion, if it could have a smell; or even taste for that matter. Sweet would be it, but bitter, like coffee with too many SugarTwins.

They were not in a bar. They were not so conforming as that. They are Ichigo and Rukia.

And it has been ten years.

They pick a less than public venue. A park at night.

He finds her sitting in a tree, just as small _(_compact_, he remembers her shouting at the top of her lungs as her face turned red, her eyes flickered like fire and her hair very nearly stood up on end)_. She looks no older in this dim lighting, barely reaching the stretch from the lamps lighting the path.

She remarks that he looks like his father and he is too happy to see her to take offense. Her smile is the jolly roger, so mischievous and sinister and familiar as the pirate cartoons he once watched as a child.

He finds himself wondering vaguely how in the world he made the connection between chubby-cheeked, pale as moonlight, dark as ink, colorful as anything, _Rukia_ and a skull and crossbones. But again the thoughts are pushed the very corner of his mind.

When one sees a friend after so long, it does not do to dwell on such inane things.

"I've missed you." She alights like silence, like night, in front of him; swift and impossible and there. She takes in his words and he sees her breathe them in as if she'd been underwater a long long time.

And then she tackles him, in a bone crushing, all encompassing, passionately bittersweet hug. He hugs her back. Because she is Rukia. And there is nothing else to be done.

The force of nature that is his friend subsides like a calmed ocean, the threat of return forever there and he, forever waiting and ready.

"I've missed you too." She pulls back and holds his face in her hands, studying it. "God you've gotten old." Her cheeks are flushed and _she's so excited_. To see him. "How are my god-babies?"

"Worrying that their mother's 'friendly chastising' is escalating to actual abuse of her dear husband." It's a joke, a long running one, and he's breathless and loves this woman so damn much. "Getting tired of all the stories of their awesome Aunt Rukia and just want to meet her already."

"They've met me," and against all odds she loves him too.

"Ten years is a long time to kids." Two conversations are being woven; the spoken and unspoken stitched so tight. And it hurts. Damnit it hurts them both, he knows.

"I'll come around more often then." She wants him so badly to be happy.

And she got her wish. He is.

He has a family. He loves his wife. He has the same messed up and completely, obsessively fantastic relationship with his eldest son that he had with his father _(without the giggling. Because Ichigo Kurosaki is a war hero. He does not _squeal_ either.)_ He is happy.

Life made him lucky and took him under it's wing, guiding him along a path he never would have expected.

But _Rukia_ was the Best _(wo)_Man at his wedding, she was the person he went to for advice on how to get his wife to stop laughing when he asked her out for the first time. She hadn't laughed at a single trivial problem he'd come to her with. She was his best friend. He loved her so much that it was beyond words; and he wanted her to have her shot at happy too.

"You don't need to take care of me Ichigo." He knows, but pretends he doesn't and the thought strikes him that they must look the odd pair what with him looking so much older, she looking so world-weary and the happiness that is sucking the air of oxygen, despite the remorse.

"This is me we're talking about. This is us." And there isn't much else to say besides that.

Ichigo had done far too much thinking tonight, it was time for a drink, possibly one of the cigars he kept in his office to keep Tatsuki from throwing them out.

"I'm aware of who we are."

She's winking and smiling and it's genuine. Something has happened but she says not a word, and he knows that when she's ready he'll be the first person she tells of what brings that twinkle to her grin.

"Fine," he sighs, old as age and aging old and feeling wearier with battle wounds and phantom pain. But happy. "Just promise me you'll visit more often." _Happy_.

And to them both, that is what counts.

"So how often is 'often'? Because, somehow I doubt you'll tolerate me coming arou-"

"Shut up."

He missed her.


End file.
